47 Responses

The social media wisdom, of course, is that organisations gain stature by leaving critical comments in place – and that deleting such comments invites an even bigger backlash. But should the police admins have deleted the more threatening comments, sooner? What was the benchmark for keeping the comments up? Was there even a strategy?

Deleting all critical comments is Bad. Never deleting any comments is Bad. Fortunately, those aren't the only options. You can't really make guidelines precise enough that your admins will always know what to do about every comment. But my gut on the ones you quoted is that the first three stay and the fourth one goes, because it advocates domestic violence. And fuck, not to put too fine a point on it, that shit.

It actually doesn't, though I can see how you got that read. There are many things wrong with that post, but advocacy of domestic violence ain't one of them. It suggests that such violence already happens, rather than suggesting that it should happen.

Nope. Read it very carefully. It says the author hopes the thugs’ womenfolk get subjected to the same treatment at the hands of other badge-wearing jackbooted thugs, and then goes on to suppose that said womenfolk get that treatment at the hands of these jackbooted thugs when those thugs get home.

I thought it was hilarious that the TVNZ spokeswoman said one of the reason the awards had been cancelled was because “the awards had become a two-horse race between TVNZ and TV3”. O RLY? Because from 1970 to 1989 the New Zealand television awards were a one-horse race, involving only TVNZ. That didn’t stop anyone from having a good time and honouring people working in the biz.

A while ago I updated the Wikipedia page for NZ film and television awards. Using data from the excellent Kiwi TV site, I was surprised to see how much change there was in the world of NZ film and television awards since 1990, after TVNZ lost its monopoly. Seriously, check it out – it’s in a nice table.

Names change, sponsors change, organising bodies change. Sometimes the TV awards team up with the film awards, sometimes there’s TV journalism awards in the mix; some years the awards aren't even held! The fact that ThinkTV is no longer running the television awards isn’t a scandal. It’s just another ordinary chapter in the long, complicated history of television awards in New Zealand.

Some will probably sigh and wish we could have a nice smooth history like the Emmys or the Logies, but no. That’s not how things are done in New Zealand. Here it’s complicated. And that gives me real hope that we won’t see the end of television awards here. Somehow someone is eventually going to come up with some way of honouring the men and women who excel in the world of telly.

Yes, but so were some of the other posts. Emma's gut call was based on it advocating domestic violence, which it did not do. If we pull it because it advocates violence then the one where the author wants to immolate police officers is also out. The one calling for violent resistance is pretty borderline, too.

Of course they won't. But as I said just above, Emma didn't particularly object to the guy who wants to douse the cops in petrol and set them alight. Her objection to this specific post was that she read it as advocating domestic violence, which is not what it did if one reads it in accordance to standard rules of interpreting punctuation. It was quite well punctuated, too, which suggests the author had a very precise interpretation in mind.

The Sorta Unofficial Film Awards didn't give cash prizes for their awards. Instead award recipients got a cool trophy presented in front of an audience of their peers. And that experience - *sniff* - is something that money can't buy.

Any of the emergency services, for starters. Various time-in-service milestones are rewarded with medals, handed out at boozy parties.

Mm, heaps of industries have annual awards. And while they might not be televised, they're certainly not private. Ever been to a motel or a cafe that proudly displays an award they've earned?

The Sorta Unofficial awards were much less public. Anyone could watch online and it was later broadcast on Sky. It was entertaining and made for good viewing, but it wasn't the all-out telestravaganza we'd see in boom times. *cough* Goftas *cough*

For something that celebrates the medium of broadcast television, it would be a pity to not have an awards ceremony that uses the very medium that it celebrates.

I've been to a few myself, John, and there was definitely consumption of a reasonable quantity of alcohol. They weren't utterly debauched, but they were far from dry.Maybe it's different in the military.